treewind:

I appreciate that - and that things have much liberalized in the past 30 years. I did allow that the Established Religion is pretty benign in the UK; both in theory and practice. (Incidentally, in practice it's often far more liberal than many parts of the US. We certainly have no Established Religion in theory but a vast number of USians think we do and/or should.)

I firmly believe that even the most benign form is still wildly unfair in practice. I can go into endless examples off list.

The taxes I meant are not those for schools per se, the are the general revenue, a significant amount of which goes (went?) directly to the Church for general use. Thus, the English Baptist must pay income tax to directly support all aspects of the C of E and ALSO contribute whatever is needed to support his/her own church. I guarantee this is noticed and resented.